After Dr. Taylor's death (1766), the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. _John Green_, another old College-acquaintance, became Mr. Pegge's London-host for a few years, till _Archbishop Cornwallis_ began to reside at Lambeth. This event superseded the visits to Bishop _Green_, as Mr. Pegge soon afterwards received a very friendly invitation from his _Grace_; to whom, from that time, he annually paid his respects at _Lambeth-palace_, for a month in the Spring, till the _Archbishop's_ decease, which took place about Easter 1783.
All these were delectable visits to a man of Mr. Pegge's turn of mind, whose conversation was adapted to every company, and who enjoyed _the world_ with greater relish from not living in it every day. The society with which he intermixed, in such excursions, changed his ideas, and relieved him from the _tædium_ of a life of much reading and retirement; as, in the course of these journeys, he often had opportunities of meeting old _Friends_, and of making new _literary acquaintance_.
On some of these occasions he passed for a week into _Kent_, among such of his old Associates as were then living, till the death of his much-honoured Friend, and former Parishioner, the elder _Thomas Knight_, Esq. of Godmersham, in 1781[23]. We ought on no account to omit the mention of some _extra-visits_ which Mr. Pegge occasionally made to Bishop _Green_, at _Buckden_, to which we are indebted for the Life of that excellent Prelate _Robert Grosseteste_, Bishop of _Lincoln_;--a work upon which we shall only observe here, that it is Dr. Pegge's _chef-d'œuvre_, and merits from the world much obligation. To these interviews with Bishop _Green_, we may also attribute those ample Collections, which Dr. Pegge left among his MSS. towards a History of the _Bishops_ of _Lincoln_, and of that _Cathedral_ in general, &c. &c.
[23] The very just character of Mr. _Knight_ given in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LI. p. 147, was drawn by Mr. _Pegge_, who had been intimate with him very nearly half a century.
With the decease of Archbishop Cornwallis (1783), Mr. Pegge's excursions to London terminated. His old familiar Friends, and principal acquaintance there, were gathered to their fathers; and he felt that the lot of a long life had fallen upon him, having survived not only the _first_, but the _second_ class of his numerous distant connexions.